Negative Net Carparks Nod a ‘Watershed’ for PBSA in Perth

Approval of a student housing scheme with no car spaces to replace a defunct three-storey carpark is being seen as a watershed moment for Western Australia’s PBSA sector.

Last week, in a Metro Inner Development Assessment Panel meeting that stretched to one-hour and 27 minutes, Sirona Urban was granted approval to build a $120-million PBSA project on the 5015sq m Point Street site of the multi-storey Westgate car park building in central Fremantle.

During the drawn-out meeting, several amendments to the City of Fremantle’s recommendation that the eight-storey project be approved were debated—but not one question was raised about parking.

Rather, on behalf of Sirona, Element Advisory principal Daniel Lees told the panel the project was “currently an unloved carpark that provides very little in the way of activation, amenity or positive contribution towards its three street frontages” and a nearby reserve.

“In its replacement, this proposal will transform this underutilised site and make a significant contribution towards the population of the city in the form of purpose-built student accommodation that is in alignment with the City of Fremantle’s objectives,” Lees said.

At The Urban Developer’s inaugural Perth Developer Symposium last month, Sirona project director Kate Stevenson told delegates that frustrating debates with decision-making authorities over car spaces for build-to-rent projects, including PBSA, still lingered.

“Developers should know their market, should know their customer, so the fact we’re still talking with local government and state government about how many car bays we should be putting in build-to-rent, that we should be putting in build-to-sell, it kind of blows my mind ... because we’re going to be stuck with a product we can’t sell if we don’t get it right,” she told the symposium.

“I’ve had a bit of an experience in the last couple of years where we had a local government and a state government disagreeing about car parking; one saying you haven’t got enough and another saying you’ve got too much.”

She said PBSA worked because developers did not need to build car parks.

▲ Kate Stevenson said that developers were still having to debate decision makers about parking required was mind-blowing. Image: Chris Thomson

At last week’s panel meeting, in moving that Sirona’s project be approved, Fremantle city councillor Andrew Sullivan said it was an “exceptional opportunity” for the port city.

“This is a great proposal in the land use, particularly in terms of the functionality of a city centre and a university town,” he said.

The state heritage-listed West End of Fremantle is home to the privately operated Notre Dame University but the city’s East End where the Sirona project can now be built is jammed with jaded buildings from the 1960s, including the Westgate car park.

Playing her part in the unanimous approval of Sirona’s project, panel chair Karen Hyde said “it should be great for Fremantle”.

She said the city “cries out for student accommodation to put a bit of heart and soul back into the place where it’s perhaps lacking ... just to get that nucleus of population to get its buzz back”. 

Deputy panel chair Francesca Lefante accepted that the “lack of onsite parking does not impede this development”.

“It’s suitably located in terms of accesibility to public transport, the rail, and therefore in terms of the lack of parking for this site I note that’s not an issue,” she said.

“It’s quite a unique, particular, land use in terms of student accommodation and [students] typically using the other forms of transportation.”

▲ A rendering of Sirona’s approved PBSA project in the heart of Fremantle.

Curtin University sustainability professor Peter Newman told The Urban Developer that approval of Sirona’s net negative parking plan, without contention over car spaces, was a “watershed” for PBSA projects in Perth.

“It’s highly symbolic of the transition that our Australian cities have been going through and need to go further on,” he said.

He said the panel’s unanimous approval, without debate over car spaces, was “very important”.

“The planning system in Western Australia has not enabled a transition to allow density and less car dependence to be built into the future,” Newman, a former Fremantle city councillor, said.

“It’s why we keep on sprawling; it’s so hard to get these developments through.

“There’s so much nonsense talked about.”

Development of the Point Street site stalled in recent years when a DoubleTree by Hilton hotel approval achieved a decade ago by former owners did not proceed.

If built as approved, Sirona’s  392-bed project will comprise 273 single-bed studios, 28 studios each shared by two scholarly residents, seven studios designed for students with disabilities and seven shared-living spaces that would each house eight students.

Designed by MJA Studio, the student housing would be a stroll to the University of Notre Dame, Fremantle train station and the 998 and 999 bus routes that circle metropolitan Perth and stop near the University of Western Australia, Murdoch University and Curtin University.

The building would include secure storage for 80 bicycles and 20 electric scooters.

In a further step beyond car dependency, the project would replace part of a double-vehicle crossover and some on-street car bays with a parklet to encourage alfresco dining for the planned cafe. Two further on-street parking bays would be converted to a loading zone.

A ground-floor cafe open to the public and a student services area would be located behind a mainly glazed street frontage. On Level 8, there would be a roof lounge, barbecue kitchen and provision for solar power.

The defunct Westgate carpark opened in 1966 and in recent years has unofficially provided shelter for homeless people.